Methods to manufacture fuels and other value-added chemicals through industrial biotechnology have the potential to improve these important industries by introducing greener and more sustainable processes. The use of biotechnologies to manufacture fuels and value-added chemicals can reduce the generation of waste and carbon dioxide emissions while improving energy efficiency, as compared to using fossil fuels (Tang, W. L. and Zhao, H. (2009). Biotechnol J 4(12): 1725-39). Industrial biotechnology also represents a growing market; the World Economic Forum estimates that the revenue potential for bio-based energy, fuels, chemicals, and materials by the year 2020 is nearly $300 billion. New biotechnological advances are constantly expanding the capabilities of engineered biological systems to produce useful products.
One problem common to all biotechnological processes is hygiene. Biological contamination in industrial fermentation processes constitutes one of the most devastating threats to the productivity of the biotechnology facilities. There are several types of infections that can occur, including eukaryotic, prokaryotic, and bacteriophage. These infections are usually the result of poor process hygiene, whether they are due to operator failure or simply the impossible logistics associated with large scale processes. For example, due to global bacteriophage abundance, bioprocesses based on bacterial activities are in constant threat of bacteriophage infections (Los et al. (2004). J Appl Genet 45(1): 111-20).
With the planned development of industrial, fermentation-based biofuel production, the scale of bioprocesses is moving beyond anything previously conceived. Thus, there exists a need for improving hygienic methods for culturing cells and producing fermentation products.